Peter Armstrong, M-DAT Executive Director

The M-DAT Vision, part 2 of 4

After introducing you to M-DAT’s freshly adopted vision statement last issue, I promised to spend some time unpacking it. This issue we will dive into the portion in bold below:

Our vision is that every believer desiring growth in mission involvement would obtain the practical assistance necessary to realize significant, lifelong involvement in the Great Commission.

Let’s tackle it in reverse order. It may surprise you that we do not just mean “going” when we say “mission involvement.”The need for “goers” certainly is great, but it is not the only form of involvement, nor the most important.

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by Peter Armstrong, M-DAT Executive Director

The M-DAT Vision, part 1 of 4

If you have ever packed a suitcase for a month long trip, you have experienced a bit of what it is like to create a vision statement. So much to pack, and so little room to fit it in! Amazingly, over the last twelve months we successfully wrangled our ministry vision into a single statement from a multi-paragraph document (insert applause). 

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by Peter Armstrong
M-DAT Executive Director

I am often greeted by blank stares when I tell folks, “I am a mission mobilizer.” While it may sound like gobbledygook, “mission mobilization” is really just a shorthand way of referring to work that helps get people onboard, excited about, and involved in the Great Commission.

Some people mobilize without noticing they are doing it. A person may tell a friend about the mission trip he went on or invite someone over for dinner with a church missionary who happens to be in town. Others consciously work to involve believers in missions.

Mobilization has two phases that build on each other in an ongoing cycle. The first phase raises awareness, educates and instills vision and passion. A person is likely exposed to this phase of mobilization when she hears a mission conference speaker. Hopefully she comes away reminded about God’s love and concern for the whole world and senses personal responsibility to join in the task. But she also probably senses a need for more of the “nuts and bolts” of how to apply what she heard to her life.

Enter the second phase of mobilization. This phase provides the practical information and guidance people need to transform their mission desire into meaningful involvement. An example of this would be ShortTermMissions.com, which helps people serve in missions by providing details on mission opportunities; or, The Journey Deepens events which provide guidance to people exploring a missions career.

Both phases are equally important to the success of passing missions onto the next generation of believers and getting people meaningfully involved in God’s plan to reach the lost of this world.

by Peter Armstrong

Five years ago this December M-DAT launched ShortTermMissions.com. The website addressed the growing need for internet based resources offering practical assistance to people seeking to develop deep, lifelong mission involvement. It was specifically aimed at helping people take the step of serving on a one week to three year mission trip.

From the beginning our goal has been to build a quality website that met real needs, became widely used, and stood the test of time.

The “thank you” notes we receive from the people and agencies we serve confirm that we are meeting felt needs. One large agency shared with us that apart from word of mouth (every agency’s primary source of participants), ShortTermMissions.com was the best producer of new participants and groups.

The traffic and scope of the service steadily grows. We launched ShortTermMissions.com with 20 agencies and 200 trips. Today we help people connect with nearly 1,000 trips from 64 mission agencies! About 5,000 to 7,000 individuals visit the website every month, an ever-growing number.

And we’re still here! Five years is quite remarkable for a website. We’re thankful for God’s provision through churches and individuals to make ShortTermMissions.com a reality and keep the service available to tomorrow’s missionaries.